After A 17-Year Run, Ford F-150 / F-Series No Longer Sales King

The automotive world really is changing: Honda Civic and Accord, Toyota Corolla and Camry each outsell the F-series pickup in May.

The Ford F-series, which has been the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for almost 17 years, has been outsold in May by four small Japanese cars.

As May sales results continue to pour in, the Honda Civic appears to have taken the crown with 53,299 sold, followed closely by the Toyota Corolla at 52,826, Toyota Camry at 51,291, and the Honda Accord with 43,728 sold. All of them beat the F-150, which saw its sales drop 31 percent compared to May 2007, for a total of only 42,973.

We admit, we were initially skeptical when Ford, and then GM execs, made grim pronouncements about the “structural” change the industry is undergoing that is forcing them to close plants and lay off thousands of workers who make trucks, while adding shifts at plants that make fuel-efficient cars.

We’ve been talking about expensive gas for a long time now, but for the first time it appears the market really is undergoing a fundamental shift. The execs may be right when they say this is not cyclical, that oil prices have brought us all to the tipping point and we will never make rote truck purchases again. We are all walking towards the green light. When four compact and mid-size cars outsell the workhorse of America, we may be ready to drink the Kool-aid.

The last time the F-series took second chair to a car was in October 1991, according to Automotive News. Truck lovers in need of solace, take heart in the fact that if you look at combined sales for the first five months, the F-150 is still king at 235,924 sold, compared with about 165,000 each for the Civic and Accord; closer to 150,000 for the Corolla; but almost 200,000 for the Camry.

One thing is sure: the days of Ford forecasting that the F-series would crack the million-unit mark in a single year are most certainly history.

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